


Cabin Fever

by camerasparring



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alcohol, Bill Denbrough is a Disaster, Blow Jobs, Bottom Richie Tozier, Come Marking, Coming In Pants, Coming Out, Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh Are Best Friends, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, Getting Together, Going on Vacation and Being Faced with Your Life, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Minor Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Misunderstandings, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Recreational Drug Use, Therapy, Vacation, and I will never write him otherwise, mention of past Eddie Kaspbrak/Mike Hanlon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27182825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/pseuds/camerasparring
Summary: “What the fuck, dude, I’m not allowed to go on vacation because you’re on vacation?”“Nothere! Not where I was very clearly going on vacationfirst.” Eddie’s arms are flailing at the speed of light. Richie watches them in abject wonder. “What the fuck are you— is this some kind of joke?”Richie huffs. “Yeah, this is a fucking joke, man, alright? I’m really getting into situational humor and I thought I’d set us up for the week. A little too sitcom-y, or can you dig it?” He grins, his janky front tooth peeking down from under his stupid lips. His hair’s a fucking mess, but it looks effortless and Eddie fucking loves it, and that reignites the rage. That, and the fact that Richie fucking Tozier just showed up to stay in the house behind him while he…tries to get over Richie fucking Tozier.Perfect.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 43
Kudos: 292





	Cabin Fever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueerOnTilMorning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueerOnTilMorning/gifts).



> This is an extremely self-indulgent fic I started while literally on this same vacation because uhhhh write what you know? 
> 
> They drink alcohol and smoke weed in this fic, and past drug/alcohol use is discussed as an FYI. 
> 
> :)

Eddie pulls up to the A-frame cabin with a grumble. At least _this_ looks exactly like the picture. 

Up until now, he’s been subsisting on the distinct rush of disappointment and adrenaline that accompanies situations he didn’t expect to work out, got naively excited about at the last minute, and then watched fall apart as all his cynical dreams came to fruition. 

The town? Not quite as quaint and lovely as Beverly made it out to be. Instead of tiny shops and quirky artists, Eddie found dead-eyed teenagers staffing dusty Victorian houses crammed with piles upon piles of _very_ breakable—as he found out the hard way—yet useless items. Now, subsequently, he’s the proud owner of an irreparably chipped set of Tweety Bird novelty plates from what he estimates was a Burger King somewhere around 1983.

The restaurant on the drive in? Sure, Eddie got a pleasant meal for what he paid, but the waiter barely looked him in the eye. He spent the entire fifty-eight minutes Eddie stuck around waiting _for_ him chatting up the chef in the kitchen, a muscled and mustachioed man that Eddie would have otherwise thought intriguing and maybe a little sexy, had he not held Eddie’s tuna melt and fries hostage for seventeen minutes longer than necessary. 

And the “secluded getaway”-esque land the cottage was evidently raving about? Nowhere in sight. In fact, as Eddie discovered when he pulled in the driveway—after a long, unpaved, rather crowded few stretches of road—his cottage bumps directly up to the backyard of his neighbor to the South. If he squints, he’s pretty sure he can see directly into the bedroom of what he hopes is an unoccupied house. 

He’s here for most of the week, and today is a _Monday_ during _off-season_ ; surely it’s not too much to ask that the other vacation rental go unbooked? Eddie walks around his car, miming opening the trunk but really peering across the driveways to where his neighbor would have hopefully not parked. 

No cars. 

Breathing a sigh of relief, he takes his luggage into the house and immediately calls Bev to rub it in. 

“There are neighbors _all over the place_ ,” he says, unloading his pre-prepped meals into the pint-sized fridge. It’s cute, he’s not above acknowledging it’s _cute_ , but if he can’t fit the bottle of mango vodka he splurged on at the market on the way in, he’s going to have to call Bev again to scream. 

“Fuck, I was afraid of that,” Bev says, but she doesn’t sound nearly as sorry as she should be. Eddie tries to take another breath, tries to think of what his therapist would say— “Take five seconds to let the feelings soak in.” “Even out your breathing.” —but that’s useless so he keeps going. 

“Yeah, _yeah_. That’s what I thought.” Eddie throws a mango into the fruit drawer. Dammit, that’s going to bruise. He should eat it tomorrow for breakfast. “I _told_ you people are just trying to sell.”

“Eddie, it’s a vacation rental.” 

“Yeah! That _you_ paid almost three hundred a _night_ for! Excuse me for wanting to get your money’s worth.” The market, and the guilt-purchase at the little shop that sells geodes as statement pieces, and the broken Tweety Bird have already amounted to more than a night’s worth here; no matter how Eddie looks at it, he’s financially in the hole on this one. 

“Oh, please. You just want to be able to mope in private.” 

Eddie blanches. “I am not _moping_.” 

He hates it when she knows him so well. 

They were never very close as kids, and had someone pulled him aside after he stumbled out of the Neibolt house just as it came crumbling down before them, a slice on his arm and his face and a sense of completion like he’d never known, and asked him who he might stay closest to when this all evened out a bit— he definitely wouldn’t have guessed Beverly. 

He probably would have said... well. Obviously, he would have said Richie. The one who pulled him two inches to the left, just in time; the one he kneeled over excitedly after spearing the clown right through the throat and thought _that’ll do it, right? That’s probably gotta do it_ ; the one whose eyes popped open with renewed vigor after the death-pale shine of the Deadlights swallowing them whole; the one who looked at him like he might—and Eddie thought he might, too— 

But that thought went nowhere. In fact, that thought drove itself directly out of Eddie’s head, to be banished into the Land of Denial until it smacked him upside the head many months later. 

Instead, he and Richie ate pancakes with the group after leaving the hospital with a total of twenty-four stitches between them. Eddie kept waiting for the panic to creep in— infection or care procedure or overlooking something terrible happening deep within him, much more grave than a knife wound searing through his gum, something that’s making him question every single decision he’s made with his life since turning eighteen and leaving Derry— but it never did. Well. Not that day, at least. That day, surrounded by his new-old best friends in the world, he ate something called red velvet pancakes drenched in syrup.

Richie watched him in abject horror, and then spent ten minutes opining the existence of red velvet, which is an argument Eddie had made approximately fifteen million times before, but instead he disagreed _fervently_ and he and Richie ended up being publically shushed by two other parties at the unassuming breakfast nook Ben found on to be the closest brunch place outside of Derry with the best reviews. 

Instead, Richie left Maine, and then he left LA, and then he moved to live full-time in Chicago; Eddie left Maine, then his wife, and then he moved to live full-time in… a different part of New York. And instead, Beverly—whose lawyers are stationed out of New York, and new boyfriend _Ben_ , with whom she’s been spending most of her time, is stationed in Nebraska—insisted on flying out to visit Eddie in the Big Apple every other week, instead of emailing or video-chatting like a normal person. 

Instead, Eddie got to know Beverly best, even when he was doing said video-chatting and texting with Richie almost every day. 

Instead, Eddie let Beverly in, because once he figured out he wanted the daily video-chatting and texting to eventually become something _real_ , something _romantic_ , something really _life-changing_ , the thought of telling Richie everything was too big a burden to bear. And when the shit hit the fan, instead of holing up alone in his apartment, like he _wanted_ , Beverly turned up at Eddie’s door with sleeping bags and a bottle of champagne (“Celebrations don’t _need_ to be happy, Kaspbrak”), and they spent the night on the floor like they were thirteen all over again, just with an added hangover and bouts of back pain the next morning. 

When that, surprise surprise, didn’t drown all of Eddie’s sorrows away, Beverly suggested he take a break. Get a cabin by the lake. One of those rental things, she said. And I’ll treat, she squealed, excited beyond measure at her own genius. 

She’d also said Richie would come around. He’s just going through a lot, she said, she still says, whenever he asks. Because he asks… a lot. 

He just… can’t bear to talk to Richie directly anymore. He even left the Losers group chat on the off-chance Richie would try to reach out amongst all of their friends. 

But he came out here to _stop_ thinking about Richie. To clear his head, maybe try to figure out how to work a dating app without Beverly peering over his shoulder and scolding him for being a technological grandpa at age forty-almost-one. He came here to readjust to his new reality. He’s done it before. 

So why does getting over Richie feel more insurmountable than getting over his divorce, and getting back to work, and living with all of his memories again? 

“You deserve a little moping time, sweetie. Thus: cabin,” she says, the echo of a poke to the chest with her pointy little finger like an emotionally phantom limb. “Be alone with your thoughts,” she says, in her exaggerated-therapist-voice, “and like, really _feel_ them. Be _authentic_ Eddie.” 

“Fuck _you_ ,” Eddie hisses. It’s a mean joke, therapy is _good_ for him, no matter how much Bev likes to rib him, lovingly, since she can’t admit to it without some form of deflection. He’s not going to say _that_ , so instead he says, “You’re a hypocrite.” 

“Maybe so,” she says, then he hears shuffling in the background. Ben, no doubt. She’s there this weekend to get the rest of her stuff moved in. “Gotta go, but you’re good, right?” 

“I guess,” he opines. “Go live your perfect fucking life or whatever. I’ll try not to drown myself in the two inches of creek water out back.” 

She snorts, and he misses her, viscerally. “You wouldn’t put your toe in that shit.” 

“Watch me,” he says, then hangs up. 

He stares at the impeccably stocked fridge and yawns. 

Maybe a nap. That’s what people do on vacation, right? Nap? He can do that.

* * *

  
  


Forty minutes later, he’s disturbed from his restless nap-attempt by familiar crunching from outside. When he lifts his head to look out the giant window stuck gracelessly on the side of the A-frame, he sees a car crawling up the driveway. The driveway next to his. The driveway to the house pressed annoying close to his. 

The driveway to the house he fake-prayed would remain empty for the duration of his stay. 

The car’s a little crappy red thing, with absolutely no bells and whistles, probably not even cup-holders. It looks like it drove straight through the woods in 1998 and emerged somehow undented or unscratched in the future. It putters up onto the elevated driveway behind the neighbor’s house and switches off. Eddie falls back onto the bed and the springs squeak in protest.

“God _dammit_ ,” he sighs. The fucking _neighbors_. Now he definitely won’t be able to spend most of the visit in pajamas, like he told Bev he was definitely _not_ going to do. What if— god forbid— this person actually tries to talk to him? Knock on his door? Tries to make _friends_? 

Eddie shivers. 

No, he’s getting ahead of himself. Catastrophizing. Of course, people know the unspoken social agreements in situations like this. They’re not paying to live in someone else’s part-time vacation home for a week to make new friends. They’re probably looking for the same sense of seclusion Eddie is. Maybe they’re here after a break-up. It’s not like Eddie can’t relate to that as well. There’s his divorce ( _of course, of course_ , he hears, in Richie’s voice, like a fucking asshole), and then there’s… well. The fact that he still hears every goddamn witty (not-so-witty) response Richie would have to basically everything he says. 

It’s certainly wasn’t a break-up. No. Nothing to break _up_ , Eddie tells himself, lifting up on his knees to yet again peer through the window; to see the door of the eerily shiny red Camry open and squint into the afternoon sun to see a dark-haired man pull his lanky body out and—

Eddie rockets out of bed, thrusts his vacation flip flops onto his feet and flings open the front door so fast he misses the first step and lands funky on his ankle. His heel comes down weird, too, and by the time he’s approaching Richie pulling a shriveled duffle bag out of the backseat, he’s hobbling angrily through the gravel. 

Richie sees him first, his eyes nearly jumping out of his dumb skull, his fingers slipping around the strap of the bag that probably contains nothing but an ounce of weed, three t-shirts and _maybe_ an extra pair of boxers and nothing else. Eddie is nauseatingly desperate to have the first word, but between the gravel shoved between his toes and the increasingly short distance between where he is walking and Richie is standing, Eddie blurts before any information really makes it from his brain to his mouth.

“This is _my_ vacation!” 

He comes skidding to a stop just as the words leave his mouth, and when he hears them, he almost turns on his throbbing heel to march right back into the house. 

Richie’s face breaks, crushing through where his eyes were pinching and his mouth was pouting and bursting into a full blown smile as he doubles over to laugh. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Eddie hisses, but that just makes Richie laugh harder, shaking through the middle until he’s snorting up a storm. “How did you even find this place?” Eddie asks, crossing his arms. “Are you here because of me? Did Bev tell you about this?” 

“Eds—”

“Don’t call me that.” A white-hot rage pours angry fuel through Eddie’s body. He’s not felt that in almost three months. “What are you doing here?” 

“What the fuck, dude, I’m not allowed to go on vacation because you’re on vacation?” 

“Not _here_ ! Not where I was very clearly going on vacation _first_.” Eddie’s arms are flailing at the speed of light. Richie watches them in abject wonder. “What the fuck are you— is this some kind of joke?” 

Richie huffs. “Yeah, this is a fucking joke, man, alright? I’m really getting into situational humor and I thought I’d set us up for the week. A little too sitcom-y, or can you dig it?” He grins, his janky front tooth peeking down from under his stupid lips. His hair’s a fucking mess, but it looks effortless and Eddie fucking loves it, and that reignites the rage. That, and the fact that Richie fucking _Tozier_ just showed up to stay in the house behind him while he… _tries to get over Richie fucking Tozier_. 

Perfect. 

“I’m not fucking _digging_ anything here. Can you answer a goddamn question or do you need it slower?” Eddie crouches forward, a little closer, and blinks right up into Richie’s face. “Whyyyy aaaare you heeeeeere?” 

Richie groans, loudly, “Oh my god, you are such a little pissant, I don’t know how I managed to ever forget you.” 

Eddie reels back; he feels it like a slap to the face. “Fuck you, dude.” 

“No, fuck you! I don’t even know what’s happening here!” Richie throws his duffle down in the gravel. Eddie winces—there’s definitely some sort of animal poop on the ground here—but Richie looks _biting_ mad. “I’m just here for a fucking _break_ , okay? You’re the one stomping out of your house like you own all of Lake fucking Michigan! Can’t we reflect on the purely hilarious happenstance of us ending up next to each other in the middle of the goddamn country together?” A smile pulls at his lips, but Eddie won’t have it. 

“Uh, yeah, if we can do that reflecting in our own fucking houses, alright? I came here to get away and be _alone_.” Eddie turns to take a few steps back toward the house. He was taking a fucking _nap_. “I don’t need you making fun of me the whole time I’m here.”

“Ed— Eddie, man, I’m not making fun of you,” Richie says. Eddie hears the shifting of the gravel as he makes his way back to the house, and once he’s on the landing he realizes Richie’s followed him. “I just came here to get away. I didn’t know you’d be here, like what the fuck, this is just a weird thing.” 

Eddie pauses with his hand on the door. He refuses to believe this is purely by chance, but he’s willing to give Richie the benefit of the doubt, since most of his anger seems to have bled away in the chase. In fact, he looks more like a doll without its stuffing, folded over on himself, slouching in Eddie’s direction. The look on his face when he saw Eddie was nothing short of shock; Eddie knows Richie acts sometimes, but… he’s never been _that_ convincing. 

Eddie turns and crosses his arms yet again, the only shield he has. 

“How did you find this place? Did Ben suggest it or something?” It could be Bev. She was _very_ insistent Eddie go to this town, and she _did_ find a place much faster than Eddie when he went looking. She and Ben were whispering in the background of their call earlier. Were they conspiring?

Richie shakes his head.

“Nah— Bill.” Richie rubs at the back of his neck, the skin a little red like he’s just come back from a cut. It does look a little more trimmed, now that Eddie’s looking. “I’ve been staying with him for a little while, now that he and Mike, uh—” 

“Right,” Eddie says, quickly, wanting to drop that topic like a hot potato. Richie scoops it up off the ground and runs with it.

“They’re really, uh—” Richie mashes his hands together, tapping his pointer fingers together gently, like they’re kissing. Eddie flushes _hard_. “You know, honeymoon phase, or whatever.” 

“The _fuck_ , okay, Bill found you the place,” Eddie diverts back. “Did he say anything about coordinating with Beverly or something?” 

Richie straightens his spine and shakes his head. His hands fall from their mock kissing to twine back together at his belt. He kicks at a bigger rock among the gravel. 

“Nope, nothing about Beverly.” Richie shrugs, then turns to point at his house, as if he’s once again realizing it’s there. “You were right, I think, though. We should just do our own things, right? That’s why we came here.” His eyebrows crawl slowly up his head as he waits for Eddie to agree. 

Eddie nods. “That’s what I want, yes,” he says, convincing himself. 

“Right, me too,” Richie rushes to say. “Uh, enjoy your stay, Eds!”

“Don’t fucking—” Eddie starts to say, but Richie’s already walking away, swiping up his bag from the ground and walking toward his own house. 

Eddie takes five deep breaths—in the nose, out the mouth—unlocks his door, and then angrily drinks Vitamin water on his rental couch for the next seventy-five minutes. 

* * *

  
  


Then he calls Beverly. 

“I have not _lost_ my mind, of course I didn’t ‘sicc him on you as a trick’ you self-centered asshole,” she says, after he accuses her of… that exact thing. But Eddie’s not so easily swayed; he needs a fucking scapegoat, and it can’t be Richie, because he’s safely tucked away in his own cabin, probably plotting to ruin Eddie’s life in yet another overly-creepy and overly-attractive way.

Fuck him. 

“He said _Bill_ told him about this place, and I _know_ you and Bill talk on the regular,” Eddie hisses into the phone. Bev groans.

“It’s not my fault you’re on a ‘Big Bill Break,’” Bev says.

Eddie stomps his foot and feels like a child. “Stop repeating my words back to me!” 

“It’s the only way you’ll see reason!” 

“That doesn’t mean I have to fucking like it!” Eddie pauses, takes another breath. “I really didn’t think Richie would stay with _Bill_ of all people.” 

“It’s been awhile since you’ve seen him,” Bev says, carefully, her tone following Eddie’s lead. “Both of them.” 

In fact, it’s been nearly an entire year since he’s seen Bill. Embroiled in legal issues off the film he abandoned and his subsequent divorce, he’s had other things on his mind, so Eddie’s given him a wide berth. They’ve commiserated about said divorce via text, and once Eddie reached out to ask his advice on the splitting of assets, but he turned out to not be of much help. In fact, Bill was _also_ wrapped up with someone else, according to Bev. It took under five minutes for Eddie to guess it was Mike. 

Mike wasn’t exactly on board—again, according to Bev—so Bill agreed to go to therapy, work through his divorce, and figure himself out a little better before jumping straight—so to speak—into another relationship. Eddie thought it was a pretty admirable move. Not to mention mature. 

Then Mike visited Eddie’s new place in New York—right after he and Richie… _nothing_ , he and Richie _nothing_ —and Eddie was able to see things a little more clearly. Mainly, Mike was pretty fucked up, too. He was all cotton shirts and bahama-patterned shorts, bathing suits and sunglasses, until you sat him down and asked how he was doing and he burst into tears at the mention of Bill’s name. Eddie quietly asked him if was pursuing therapy himself, to which he answered affirmatively, and then propositioned Eddie into a no-strings-attached hook up in the bathroom at the restaurant. 

Eddie said no, of course, because he’s not the kind of guy who fucks in a dirty bathroom stall. Not that Mike _is_ , but… desperate times. Eddie understood. So he ushered Mike back to his place, and they watched a movie to calm down, and then ended up swapping blowjobs on the couch instead.

Eddie’s not an _idiot_. And even through the tears, and the misplaced attraction, and the fact that it was probably a bad idea, Eddie wasn’t ready to give up such an attractive opportunity when placed right in front of him. Like, unfairly attractive. 

Mike went home a few days later, seemingly a little more even-keeled, and Eddie felt confident in his dick sucking skills for the first time in his life. 

And yeah, maybe once he found out that Bill and Mike had actually struck something up, he suddenly didn’t feel much like talking to either of them. And yeah, maybe he was a little bitter about the fact that Bill actually _got the guy_ he’d been pining over. Mike, too. Okay, maybe it was completely about Eddie, in the end. But he always meant to talk to Bill again. Mike, too. He’s just… wallowing right now. 

“You know I’m—” Eddie suddenly feels like a giant asshole. But Richie is fucking _here_. “I’m supposed to be, like, thinking about shit this week! I’m not supposed to face my fucking problems like this. This is unfair. This is categorically unfair all around. I’m moving through things _slowly_. This is not slow.” Eddie points out in the general direction of Richie’s cabin. To, like, the South or whatever. “This is fast. This is way too fast for me.” 

“Then slow down!” She yells in his ear. He pulls the phone away and puts it on speaker. At least the windows and doors in this place seem relatively soundproof. “Just take it easy. That’s why you’re here. And he said that’s why _he’s_ here.”

Eddie twirls in a circle. Stares at the take-out menu for the American cafe he’d earmarked for dinner. He’d spent more than a week being excited about their beer cheese and the accompanying overly-salted pretzels—mainly because Richie made him _try_ beer cheese when he was in Chicago during his Apology-For-Ghosting tour, and Eddie had liked it so much Richie let him finish the rest of the little fondue pot they stuck in the middle of the table—and he isn’t willing to give up on that dream for tonight. Cheese. Carbs. Weird foreign Lesbian DVD he found in front of the television. In essence: a wallowing party. 

“Okay, fuck it, okay. You’re right,” Eddie says, and Bev perks up. She must be tired of this routine after a couple months, but he’s not going to promise it will end anytime soon. He’s still skeptical about achieving any level of relaxation or self-reflection this week. 

“Obviously.” Something muffled in the background. “Let me know how it goes, okay? I love you.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie says, and hangs up before the wave of affection gets the better of him. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The thing is… they can’t really _avoid_ each other _and_ do their own thing. Even though, by the general theme of their conversation earlier, avoiding each other seems to be a big part of what _their own things_ entail. 

Eddie does enjoy a nice evening on his own. Other than the angry stream-of-consciousness that accompanies it, he’s mostly able to relax into the comfortable couch and subtitled sapphic feature. Even the beer cheese is worth the overpriced tag and the memories of Richie. There are a few positive ones in there, if he overlooks all the emotions of it. And it might be okay to, like, dwell on them sometimes, he guesses. Just a little. 

By the time the movie’s over, the sun hasn’t even set, so he pokes his head out the sliding door at the back of the cottage to inspect the patio.

The cottage isn’t _small,_ per se; actually, the kitchen space is a lot bigger than what he has at his place. A wraparound with a small fridge, a dining area with a kitschy hanging lamp and a main area with a tv, couch and sitting chair. There’s two bedrooms: one in a loft-style upstairs from a perilously steep incline of what Eddie considers half-steps, and one—the one Eddie will be sleeping in—downstairs off the bathroom. He knows both his night-time bathroom habits and his knees too well to know even attempting to climb up to the second story again is a no-go. But the real sell of this place is, undoubtedly, the patio. 

The windows, on the back wall of the entire cabin, floor to ceiling, extend up to showcase the cradle of dozens of trees, spanning over the whole house. Out two sliding doors is a wooden deck with two sets of two chairs and a couple of glass tables. It’s a beautiful little nook away from what is otherwise a pretty crowded area. If Eddie stands outside, just for a second, he can pretend he’s alone in the woods. 

Away from Richie Tozier. 

Until he looks up, squinting at what he thinks might be a squirrel zig-zagging its way through the forest ground, and sees none other than Richie traipsing around among the trees. 

Yet again, Eddie’s instinct is to yell. Tell Richie to get out of there, to let him enjoy peace and quiet and get his own part of the forest. But then Eddie takes his customary five seconds and realizes Richie’s allowed to be walking through the forest at will. He’s paying to be here, too. And even if he weren’t— it’s a free country, right? Richie can have a vacation, too. A vacation from being a know-it-all asshole who’s more concerned about his own idea about reality than listening to anyone else’s. A vacation from leading people on and then shutting them the hell down. A vacation from the unbelievable self-awareness that still somehow manifests in being completely oblivious. 

Eddie takes another five seconds, since the first set seems to have worn off.

In that time—in the time he spends evening out his breathing, _again_ , and trying to quell the rise of resentment and bitterness—he watches the dark mop of Richie’s head bob through the forest. At first, he couldn’t give a rip what he’s doing, until his brain starts to piece it together: he’s gathering wood. That’s when his curiosity gets the better of him. 

“What are you gonna build a fucking dam out there or something?” 

Richie’s head lifts quickly to find the source of the noise, but Eddie’s an asshole, so he ducks out of sight. He watches Richie wave unknowingly at him, gesturing wildly to encompass the whole of nature, before yelling back. 

“I’m building a fucking fire,” he says, full of righteous indignity, “like you do when you’re in the fucking _woods_.” Then softly, to himself, “Need me some goddamn kindling first, though.” 

Eddie ignores the warm bloom that rises into his chest. Richie used to build fires for them as kids, once Eddie started letting him. Before age fifteen, it always seemed too dangerous; after Pennywise, Eddie just remembers thinking, _Why the fuck_ not? Richie would make giant teepees of wood he found in the brush surrounding the Kenduskeag, and Bill and Mike would help give it a little nudge with balled up pages of the Pennysaver so the whole thing would start more easily. Eddie moved away the next summer, but he remembers at least a few warm nights with the flames heating his face and the reflection of the orangey yellow glow in Richie’s glasses. 

He spends the next half an hour watching Richie gather wood, and then the following half hour watching Richie attempt to start a fire with wet wood and a book of matches. Eddie didn’t even know you could get matchbooks anywhere anymore.

“You’re never going to get that thing lit without paper,” Eddie tells him, proudly sitting on his patio furniture, since he blew his cover and popped up too excitedly after spotting a whole new bundle of sticks next to the small creek that Richie promptly dragged over after enough yelling. 

Richie just grumbles. “You think I haven’t thought of that?” 

“I thought you were the Master of Fire Artistry, dude, you didn’t bring paper along with you?” 

The words just… come out. 

The memory isn’t there—of Richie hunched over paper and sticks and coughing his lungs out as he tried and tried and _tried_ until finally the flames licked while he danced around them, declaring himself the king, the master, the _artist_ —and suddenly it just is. It’s been happening like that, since. A lot of things have been happening, since. Because it turns out that memory isn’t exactly a straight line. And sometimes the things buried deep in your brain get struck, like a match against the hard, sand-papery edge of your subconscious, and then you’re stuck trying to put the flame out. 

It’s dark, and Richie doesn’t have much of a flame going past a tiny little spark among some of the smaller piles of sticks he’s placed in the firepit. But Eddie can see his eyes cross the Neutral Line he’s been keeping all afternoon as he tries to find Eddie on the balcony. When he finds him, Eddie’s breath catches in his throat. 

It’s too familiar; it’s all-consuming. It’s every smile through their phones as they came into focus, all those miles apart and still so connected. It’s last minute visits and stupid, pointless hang outs that felt more exciting than anything Eddie had ever done with Myra. It’s being seconds away from something that kept never happening.

It’s them stuck together on the couch, tangled up and excited, wrestling their half-naked bodies until Eddie slid between Richie’s legs and Richie let him. Just for a minute. Just until Eddie looked back up.

Eddie wants to run inside, because looking never got him anywhere good. But he holds Richie’s gaze. 

Richie screws up his mouth. Licks at his lips. And says nothing.

He uses his make-shift working stick to spread out the logs, extinguishing any pathetic flame he had going, and gathers up his bag of supplies—the making for s’mores, Eddie would guess—and marches into his house. 

Eddie goes back inside. 

He sleeps like a baby in the downstairs bed, but wakes up promptly at 6am, clutching a sweaty pillow and reaching for someone who isn’t there.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The next day, it only continues. 

Eddie wakes, a hollow pressure on his chest the only evidence of his conversation with Richie last night. He makes himself some egg whites, toasts up some rye, shakes off the tight pinch pulling at his lungs, and stares out at the trees while he eats. Once he’s washed the dishes to keep from getting any build up in the sink—clutter stresses him out more than doing the dishes, and this is his _vacation_ —he grabs a book at random from what is basically an entire suitcase he jam-packed full of them. Just in case.

He heads out to the concrete slab the VRBO site called “an outdoor gathering spot;” it’s more of an open space with a picnic table and a couple metal chairs. But with the slight chill in the air, the proximity to the sun, shining slanted onto his face and bare feet—again, _vacation_ — evens out the shabbiness. Eddie cracks the book and tries to ignore the wide, curtainless windows of the neighboring cabin. And the creeping suspicion that it’s Richie’s bedroom.

Turns out, the one he picked has a golden embossed William Denbrough on the front cover. He can’t quite remember if he ever tried to read them before, or just passed them on the shelves, with their dark, morose covers and purposefully horror-vague titles and steered himself into the nearest cookbook aisle instead. In any case, he’s tried several times _since_ then to no avail.

Halfway through yet another overly-descriptive protagonist pondering, Eddie flips to the front cover to check the year, when he sees a flash of motion in his periphery. His eyes dart up north before he thinks of it, before he remembers that’s where Richie’s _bedroom_ probably is, and sure enough, Richie is there. 

Rumpled. Barely awake. Shirtless. The points of his hips skate into view and—

Eddie’s jaw drops as fast as his eyeline. 

He can’t look at that. 

The wave of shock and embarrassment and… (fuck it) _lust_ shocks him up out of his chair. Feet stuttering over themselves, he loops demented circles around the pavement, trying to rapid-blink the image out of his mind. Because he _cannot look at that_ , and all his eyes want to do is bounce right-the-fuck back up.

He’s seen Richie shirtless a few times before; they visited each other enough times for Eddie to catch a glimpse as he was first waking up. And sure, he paid attention. He paid a little too much attention. But back then, he was still pretending it wasn’t a _thing_. In his mind, the attention paid did not correlate to interest because they were friends. 

Richie was straight, Eddie was _definitely_ straight, and they were really good friends who had reconnected and whose connection should not and _could_ not be corrupted by that dancing, vibrating feeling deep in Eddie’s gut whenever he snuck a peek of Richie’s broad, hairy chest; or his thighs in those shorts he wore to attempt hiking before giving up as soon as he found a falafel cart; or the stubbly cut of his jaw after he’d forgotten to shave for a day or two; or the breadth of wiry hair that gathered around his cock, when Eddie pulled down his—

In any case, Eddie eventually figured out that he isn’t straight. And that Richie definitely isn’t, either.

Just… not in that order.

Eddie feels like his head might burst with pressure. He curses himself for going out to read when he knows full well that Richie wakes up around ten every morning, takes a shower— that man wastes enough water to continue the California drought for years, but at least now they’re in the Midwest— drinks two cups of coffee for breakfast and tries to write. 

But he doesn’t know Richie’s schedule anymore. He doesn’t know anything about Richie anymore. 

He doesn’t know Richie’s habits, or how often he showers, or what he eats— or doesn’t eat— for breakfast. He could have learned to make omelettes. Or french toast. Or maybe he actually kept that waffle iron Eddie got him for Christmas and bought fresh strawberries down the road and—

Eddie glances back up, as if he could intuit Richie’s food choices through sight, but Richie’s still standing in the bedroom. Eddie only feels marginally less embarrassed, since Richie’s the one who left his curtains open all night long. It’s now common knowledge that Eddie is staying so close— why wouldn’t he want privacy? From the sound of it, he’s just as mad at Eddie as Eddie is at him. 

And for fucking _what_? Richie really thinks he has the right to be angry? When he’s the one who practically kicked Eddie to the curb? And after Eddie put his whole heart on the line? Eddie’s the one who was vulnerable, and instead Richie just… just pushed him away. And then fucking _left_. 

Blinking through the anger, Eddie catches another wisp of movement from the bedroom. Richie’s body bends to the right, his left arm over his head, stretching out his chest until Eddie can see the vague shape of his ribs through his skin. He’s… _doing stretches_. 

“Is this a fucking joke,” Eddie whispers. 

Richie has _never_ stretched. Richie doesn’t exercise. Richie barely moves. He just drinks and smokes weed and talks. The one time Eddie invited him on a run, Richie told him that “running his mouth was enough cardio for him,” and then followed it up with, “among other things,” and waggled his eyebrows, and when Eddie finally left he beat his average mile time by two minutes and then jerked off in the bathroom later that night. 

Eddie’s eyes trace the movement of Richie’s torso as it bends, and folds, the soft pouch of his belly extending and swelling in a way that makes Eddie’s mouth water. Distinctly and painfully, he remembers tracing a hand over the skin there, his drunken fingers bold and hot and fucking desperate to know just how much Richie would shiver underneath him.

As Richie turns around, his spine bowing over so he can presumably touch his toes, Eddie wraps an angry hand around the arm of his chair and flips it toward his own cabin. 

“Close your fucking _curtains_ ,” he hisses, and briefly considers getting Richie’s attention to yell the very same thing, but Bev’s words run on a burning track in his head. 

Vacation. It’s vacation. Do his own thing. 

He re-opens his book and reads the same sentence twenty times before giving up to go inside. 

* * *

  
  


Richie actually gets the fire started that night. 

Eddie sees him down there, slouched in his chair, the flames licking up red and orange against the dark backdrop of the trees. He’s holding a beer, and what looks like a cigarette, or maybe a joint. 

Something about it, something about _seeing_ him there, makes something boil deep down in Eddie’s gut. He wants to go down there. 

He calls Bev again instead. 

“Sweetie, maybe you should just talk to him,” she interrupts, because he’s begun to ramble, but Eddie’s brain throws up a tall defensive wall. He should have finished his boring book out of spite like he planned. “It might help.”

Suspicious. 

“Do you know something I don’t? You _did_ invite him here, didn’t you?” Eddie asks, wild and paranoid theories scraping at his brain. 

Bev gasps. Eddie clocks it as fake. Oh yeah, he’s fucking _onto_ her. 

“I don’t know anything. Why are you stuck on this? How is this the hill you’re willing to die on?” 

“You talk to him, don’t you?”

“Not… as much as I used to, no.” She sighs, then mumbles something into the background. God, can’t she fucking hang up the happy couple routine for two seconds to talk him through a relationshi— a… a _regular single human_ crisis? 

“You two are friends, though,” Eddie says. He knows that. He remembers Richie and Bev hanging out alone constantly, they’d smoke weed and shoot the shit and rub elbows with people far more famous than Eddie ever felt he had the right to see in person. Then again, most of them he _did_ meet ended up being giant assholes, so Eddie never felt too bad about it. 

“We— yeah, of course we’re friends. It’s just that sometimes, when friends sort of… split ways, it’s normal for some of the _other_ friends to kind of… branch off. In different… friendly.” She clears her throat. “Directions.” 

“Direc—” Eddie stares out at the trees, swaying blissfully unaware in the sky. “Wh— What?”

Bev makes a sound between a growl and a groan. “You kind of fucking broke up, Eddie!” 

“There was— Whoa.” Eddie’s heart kicks up in his chest. “You _know_ nothing happened.” 

Nothing she specifically knows about, anyway. He couldn’t even bring himself to tell her the details. And he definitely couldn’t tell her Richie came out to him. That isn’t information he could just _tell_ people. So it made everything rather… complicated.

“Yes, yes,” she groans, and he suddenly wishes he hadn’t called her at all. He doesn’t need to hear this; he’s happy living in his tree alcove and ignoring the obvious. Even if most of his trip so far has boiled down to anger and resentment. “Nothing happened, but _something_ happened that night, and now you two don’t speak, and you _won’t_ speak _of_ each other, and it’s all very awkward and painful and really, _really_ annoying, and in the aftermath, Richie and I kind of lost track of each other.” 

“Bev,” Eddie starts, but Bev strings together a bunch of constants and drowns him out.

“So can you please just talk to him? And at least get along? So the rest of us don’t have to suffer in your dramatic gay silence?” 

Eddie chews at his lip. Says, “I will… consider it. But only because you paid for my vacation and I still feel guilty.” 

Bev laughs. “Deal.” Then, “And if you refrain from yelling, I’ll buy you dinner.” 

“Fucking long shot,” he says under his breath. “You’ll buy me dinner when I get back no matter what I do, you fucking pushover.” 

“Fuck off and do what I say.”

“I told you I would think about it, alright?? Stop being so cocky.”

“Stop being dramatic.”

“You already said that,” he tells her, then winces. He did promise his therapist he’d push outside his comfort zone. He speared a fucking clown through the mouth. He pulled a knife out of his own face. He climbed into a dirty sewer, he told Myra they couldn’t keep doing what they were doing, he lived on his own for the first time in his adult life. He really needs to put his money— fucking _lots of it_ , since he had that gap-period when he was between jobs and therapy was more of a life-or-death option than a luxury— where his mouth is. 

He’s done far scarier things than having another conversation with Richie Tozier. 

Besides, what could go wrong. Right? 

What could be worse than being outright rejected, stumbling back to your bedroom drunk, puking on your own bedspread and then waking up to find the best friend you just made a pass at left in the middle of the night? 

“Well?” Bev asks, and he almost shushes her on instinct.

Instead, he says, “I told you I’ll think about it, I love you,” and hangs up. 

She texts him, “Love you, too, moron,” a few minutes later, but he’s already pacing the length of the living room, trying to gather the courage to go outside. 

It never happens. 

  
  
  


* * *

The next day, Eddie wakes late, exhausted from all the pacing and internal monologuing the night before. The sharp pains and stunted breathing were close enough to an anxiety attack that he ended up rifling through his bag to find his emergency inhaler. The thing was useless in the end, but the comfort of having it ended up being enough. These days it usually is. 

In preparation for a stressful conversation, Eddie decides to treat himself and head out for some Thai food. There’s a place that came highly recommended from the owners of the cabin, in the extensive binder they put together with sights and restaurants in the area. Eddie feels the need to reward binder-making behavior of this caliber, so he drives the ten minutes into town and parks a block from Thai Village. The people milling about are enough of a distraction that he doesn’t see Richie walking toward him until they’re both reaching to open the door. 

Eddie’s heart nearly rockets out of his chest at the sight of him, a fucking residual lovesick reaction that still seems to be alive and well. 

Richie just sighs resignedly, like he knew this would happen if he left the house. 

Eddie opens his mouth to say… _something_ , when he realizes Richie’s hand is still holding the door handle over his. His eyes bounce between their hands, then Richie’s face, then their hands again, suddenly not sure how the hell to get out of this. It’s like he’s lost all manner of reason. Of speech. Of human logic and understanding. Because Richie is _right there_. Wearing a leather jacket that’s not _that_ leather jacket but looks close enough.

Eddie’s caught in visions of Richie’s bare chest and Richie’s stretching torso and Richie falling back onto the couch as Eddie pushed him down and knelt—

But Richie’s hand retracts. He holds both of them up in a sign of surrender, wiggling his fingers.

Eddie turns back around and leaves. He’s never been fond of Thai food, anyway. 

He eats a dry sandwich in his cabin and thinks about Richie’s hand over his, warm and a bit clammy, and feels like the most pathetic man alive. 

  
  


* * *

By the afternoon, Eddie decides Bev is probably right: they should talk. The universe seems to want _something_ from them, and he can’t spend the rest of his life peering around the corner, inexplicably worried Richie will pop out of nowhere and accidentally hold his hand. Then again, that’s more action than he’s gotten in three months, so maybe he should consider himself lucky. 

In any case, he vows to wait for Richie to appear for a nightly fire and then buck up and talk. 

Once seven rolls around with no sign of fire—or even Richie picking up sticks—he panics and pre-cancels the conversation in his brain. If Richie doesn’t have a fire, there’s no easy opportunity to approach him, and to _drink,_ and Eddie is definitely not going to have this conversation sober. Then again, he definitely wasn’t sober the first time, and that didn’t exactly improve the outcome. 

Just as he’s browsing the collection of eight DVDs, he hears the shifting of gravel outside. He runs to the window like a kid on Christmas, but with much more humiliated, nervous energy, to see Richie building his patented teepee of wood. 

Eddie whips open the fridge door, grabs his small four-pack of stupid margarita shit he found at the corner store (because beer is _disgusting_ ), and heads outside. 

As soon as Richie catches sight of him, Eddie almost turns back around to book it into the house. Richie’s eyes flicker in the remaining evening light, staring Eddie down where he’s standing, hovering, waiting in the gap between their properties… and then turns back to continue tending the fledgling fire. Eddie takes that as a sign to keep walking. 

All the chairs are pushed as far away from Richie’s as possible, as if Richie knew someone was going to attempt to join him, so Eddie pulls one a reasonable distance away and sits down. Richie doesn’t sit down for another ten minutes. He doesn’t look at Eddie for another ten after that. 

The margarita in a can is cold and sweaty in his hand; Eddie drinks in silence for as long as he can manage, but after twenty minutes of watching Richie’s jaw twitching, and flexing, and stretching around his beer bottle, the words spill out in yet another fit of rage.

“I see you finally figured out the fire,” he says, a little too loudly. Richie looks at him, again, for the oh, third time, if Eddie were counting, which he’s _not_ , and purses his lips. 

“Wonders never cease when there aren’t little men creeping from on high criticizing you,” Richie murmurs. 

“Oh fuck you, I wasn’t—” Eddie stops. Tries to breathe, but instead all he can hear are Bev’s words. All he can see is the fucking steak and lobster meal he’s going to insist on. He rolls his shoulders back against the metal chair and grits his teeth. “You’re finally living up to the nickname in adulthood, good for you.” 

The big log balanced in the middle of the firepit finally catches, and Richie’s lips twist into a smile. 

“I didn’t think you remembered that,” he says, still quiet. Eddie has to strain to hear him for the first time in his life. Richie was only ever quiet when he _really_ didn’t want to talk about something. And even then, he usually followed it up with a brash outburst about another topic instead. 

“Of course I fucking remember, you basically screamed it into the woods every time I let you have a fire.”

Richie rockets forward in his chair, his beer sloshing over the tall rim. “ _Let_ me??” 

“Ayuh.” 

Richie’s eyes squint at the double-call back. And okay, Eddie’s being a little bit of a dick. But that’s their _language_. It’s too easy to fall back into it. 

“I never needed your permission, Eds,” Richie bites. “Besides, you spent most of my fires shut up in your house since your mom wouldn’t let you near anything cracking higher than a perfect ninety-eight point six degrees.” His body falls back into his chair— a nicer, fabric one, clearly made for camping. Eddie shifts against the metal. 

“I made it to a couple,” Eddie says, taking another sip. It tastes like a fucking jolly rancher, but the alcohol is already swimming pleasantly in his head. “One was impressive.” 

Riche’s eyes keep shocking wide and clinging to Eddie with surprise. This time, like all the others, they slink back to normal almost as quick. But Eddie sees it. Eddie sees the bounce of Richie’s feet against the dirt, the twiddle of his fingers around the large stick anchored in his hand. Every few minutes, he pokes it into the fire to move logs around. 

“Now hopefully you’ve learned not to doubt me,” he says. His voice is lighter, and Eddie relaxes a little. Richie jerks his chin toward Eddie’s can. “Don’t tell me that’s beer.” 

“Ugh, no,” Eddie spits, lifting his can toward the last tendrils of light. “It’s some stupid fucking bastardization of a margarita.” 

“You always liked those sugary things,” Richie scoffs, and Eddie hears the laugh. It feels like opening him up slowly, splitting the hairs of his hostility so Eddie can burrow in where it’s warm and flexible. 

“It’s better than drinking watered down piss.”

Richie scowls over at him. “I wanted you to try the mild shit first.” Eddie rolls his eyes, exaggerating the subsequent head motion so Richie can see him in the dark. It works, cause Richie jerks up in his chair to yell, “To get a taste for it!” 

“Why do I need a taste for it? Plenty of adults go their whole lives without drinking beer. That’s what _wine_ is for, dipshit.” 

“ _You’re_ the one who wanted to try it!” Richie pauses; hikes up his shoulders in that way he does when he’s about to imitate him— as if someone couldn’t look up bad posture in the dictionary and see a picture of adult Richie Tozier slouching to his heart’s content— but Eddie’s too fond to stop it, too relieved to be back-and-forthing like this. “ _I just want to be able to bring a drink to the beach, or order something easy at a bar, or walk through a museum with a can of beer like a real man_.”

“I did _not_ say that, who the fuck brings beer to a _museum_ —”

“People who want to have fun while doing something really fucking boring,” Richie says, poking at the fire with his stick.

“—and drinking beer doesn’t make you a man.” 

“You’re the one that said it,” Richie mumbles. 

“Did not,” Eddie throws back, though he doesn’t remember for sure. He’s pretty sure he and Richie never went to a museum together; a planetarium once, and maybe he does remember a mini fridge full of five dollar cans he couldn’t partake in, but really. It doesn’t really matter. Richie smiles over at him, a hesitant, quirked thing, and Eddie could cry with relief. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


They bicker like that over the fire for almost an hour before Eddie finally starts to feel the smoke catch up with him. Richie doesn’t seem to be having any issues, smoking a joint like an old Hollywood starlet who’s years from contracting consumption.

Eddie, on the other hand, is wriggling in his seat. Like if he keeps on the move, the tickle crawling down his throat won’t be able to catch up with him.

“You alright over there, Eds?”

“Don’t call me—“ Eddie sputters before a cough wheezes out of him, and then he tries, and fails, to choke down an even breath. It doesn’t stop, caught tight and heavy between his ribs, his lungs, stinging deep in his chest, and Richie shoots out of his chair to pat him on the back, which doesn’t help, just gets the coughs rolling again, because the heat and long, startling press of Richie’s fingers— even through the light fall jacket Eddie threw on just in case— is enough to make him choke on his spit. 

“Maybe we should call it a night,” Richie says, but Eddie’s already shaking his head by the time the words are out. 

“I have a, a… patio.” Eddie grits through his teeth, dry and rotting from the lack of saliva and overabundance of sugar. 

“What, your creeping station?” Richie asks incredulously, hand moving down to poke Eddie in the thigh. Eddie’s whole body seizes gently at the new touch, but Richie’s hand stays there, then strokes up and down, mindless, like it’s easy, like it’s… like it’s six months ago and they’re just hanging out at Richie’s place. A hand on his thigh; fingers ruffling through his hair; a heavy sigh while he shifts next to him on the couch. 

No wonder Eddie thought he was interested. 

But this isn’t that. Richie made it very clear that _this_ isn’t _that._

Richie made it abundantly clear. And that shores up the little crevices in Eddie’s brain that are starting to fall for it again. 

Eddie swallows down the gathered up sugary gunk and what remains of the coating of his esophagus and tries again. 

“Yeah, my fucking— anyway. Do you wanna, uh. You wanna come up?” 

The phrasing makes Eddie want to smack himself, and when Richie stands, stretching his body out and audibly puffing out a breath, he almost takes it back. 

Richie looks up to the patio, shoving his hands in his pockets and bobbing his head back and forth.

“Can I smoke up there?” 

Eddie groans. 

* * *

  
  


Next thing he knows, they’re side by side in the chairs, a table full of water, two cans of margaritas and an ashtray between them. When Richie pulls a joint from his pocket and points it Eddie’s way, Eddie’s lungs seize up from the sense memory. 

“What, you haven’t got enough smoke in your lungs?” 

Richie smiles, shaded in half-light and devastatingly handsome, now that Eddie can see a little better. They only switched on the bulb furthest from them; Eddie didn’t want a bunch of moths floating around but he certainly didn’t want to be stuck outside, in the darkness of the trees, ambling through still slightly awkward conversation with Richie. 

“Did you know campfire smoke is like, way worse for you than actual smoking?” Richie asks, that familiar lilt to his voice whenever he’s telling Eddie what he thinks is new information. 

“I’ve heard something like that,” Eddie responds. The smell is intoxicating; it always kind of was, especially when he saw what resulted: a loose-limbed Richie who giggled at everything Eddie said. “But it’s not like you’re smoking a pack of bonfires a day.” 

Eddie sees Richie’s fingers flinch around the rolled joint, one of those fancy ones he buys pre-packaged and carries around in a little tin. 

“I actually stopped smoking cigarettes,” Richie says, flicking the lighter until it gives. 

“You—” Eddie bites the inside of his cheek. _Right_. He doesn’t know Richie anymore. A lot can change in a few months. Apparently. “Just weed, then, huh?” 

“Weed and beer,” Richie says on an exhale. Smoke weaves between them, big circular clouds twisting toward Eddie’s face. 

“Good for you,” Eddie says, meaning it less genuinely than it comes out. 

Riche hums. Takes another drag. 

Eddie’s tongue itches in his mouth. He reaches over and scrunches his fingers toward himself. 

“Gimme.” 

Richie blinks. It makes Eddie even itchier. Makes him want to smoke, just to prove Richie wrong. Eddie wiggles his fingers again, and this time Richie hands it over quickly. 

Eddie holds it to his mouth, trying to ignore the already-damp paper from where Richie’s lips were just clinging tightly. He breathes in, taking it slowly, because he doesn’t need to use the inhaler for real this time. He doesn’t need Richie seeing him using the inhaler. 

He doesn’t need Richie to know he hasn’t changed. At all. 

The feeling is light, and _smoky_ , but overall, it’s not unpleasant. A slow simmer of relaxation sets in. His limbs feel staticky, like all of them fell asleep at once, but when he tries to clench his fist, it follows his brain’s orders without issue. 

Huh. 

Maybe if he were home, maybe if he were in New York, this would freak him out. Certainly, being with Richie again has that effect. But as he takes in the darkness, the vague light bouncing from his patio out into the vast forest of trees in front of them, he feels nothing but calm. 

The alcohol is sitting warmly in his veins. The last remnants of Richie’s fire crackle quietly below them. The roads surrounding the cabins are empty. It feels like there’s no one for miles. The constant edge of panic in his brain doesn’t quite recede, it just takes a backseat. That’s exactly what he wanted, right? 

It’s then his brain realizes it’s not completely silent. 

Richie’s talking.

“Hmmm?”

Richie’s gaping at him with wide eyes. His big, dumb body has turned in his seat, so he’s staring directly at Eddie. 

“I was asking what you ended up having for lunch since you eighty-sixed the Thai food,” Richie says, his eyes gently glazed, like he’s been all night. “You really didn’t hear me that whole time? You alright, dude?” 

“ _Dude_ ,” Eddie repeats, the dull sound of the d’s striking wet and satisfying in his mouth. “S’good word. Dude.” 

“It _is_ a good word,” Richie says, voice shaking with what Eddie knows is a laugh, but he doesn’t care. Richie can make fun of him. He feels good. He turns back to the trees. They hiss in the wind while Richie keeps watching him. 

“Trees are pretty good,” Eddie says, and Richie laughs. 

“It’s working for you, huh?” Richie says, kind of sly, and that sets something off in Eddie’s brain. 

He can’t stop it.

“Does it work for you?” Eddie asks. And then stares. Watches. Watches Richie’s smile fall gracelessly, then expand and contract until his face goes completely slack. Realization hits him. 

“What— whaddya mean?” 

Air puffs rudely through Eddie’s nose. “Don’t pretend like you’re not thinking about it.”

Richie blinks. Takes a nervous drag from the joint. His pupils are dilated, but he hardly looks high. His eyes bounce away, to the crooked slats of wood that make up the patio. Eddie wonders how high he looks. He knows he sounds it. 

“I don’t— I’m just trying to hang out, man. Have a nice night,” Richie says, pointing down at where they abandoned the fire. 

“What, like last time?” Eddie says, words flowing from his mouth unbidden. He’s kind of beyond giving a shit. Bev wanted him to talk, so he’s talking. No yelling. 

No filter, either, but that’s beyond the point. He’s never felt more relaxed in his life. 

“You _seriously_ want to talk about that right now?” Richie asks. His feet bounce against the floor. His fingers jitter around the joint, still lit orange at the tip. Eddie wants another puff, but he wants to talk about this more. 

“Well what the fuck else are we gonna do?” Eddie says, and Richie’s mouth drops open in the mime of an answer. “Pretend like it didn’t happen? Go back to normal?” 

“I don’t—”

“I told you I loved you. And tried to suck your dick,” Eddie says, matter-of-factly. 

Richie sucks in a breath, or maybe it’s a gasp, but either way, it feels like someone drove by, tossed a metric fuck-ton of bricks at their feet, and left as soon as the whole foundation started to crumble beneath them.

“You didn’t—” Richie starts, but Eddie hears his throat click half-way through. Richie’s chair creaks as he moves around. “I can’t believe you just—” He laughs hysterically, his hand digging through his hair, his hairline pulling back even farther in the process.

“What’s the fucking point, man?” Eddie says, and then there’s tears edging into his vision, and _fuck_ , this is even worse. “What the hell do we have left to lose?” 

Richie shoots up out of his chair, and for a second, Eddie thinks he’s going to storm through the doors and leave for good. Instead he paces the length of the patio, the light glow of the joint following behind him. He sucks on it, desperately, and Eddie watches his mouth curve and puff, hungry and wild in his abandon. 

Eddie wants to kiss him. Eddie wants to kiss him so fucking bad he can’t breathe. 

The campfire doesn’t have anything on this. 

“That’s not what—”

“It’s exactly what happened,” Eddie insists, and that brings Richie to a stop. He stares. Stares right at Eddie, right directly into the center of him, and Eddie wants to shrug away, but he also feels anger shoot through him like a flare. 

Richie rubs at his forehead, tapping against his temple before he finally bursts.

“I know it’s what happened, but it’s not what fucking… it’s not what _actually_ happened, man! That’s not what was going on! You need fucking… context if you’re gonna—” He flails his arms, opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. “You had just signed your fucking divorce papers. You got drunk and wanted to watch a movie, and then you fucking cuddled me on the couch like it was… like it was _nothing_. And I let you. I let you, man.”

Richie’s back bows, like saying all this is the equivalent of carrying boulders up a hill.

“I’d been— I’d been fucking _kidding_ myself, all those months. All that time with you. Hanging out, spending every second together we could get, even talking about— you were talking about _moving in with me_ , Eds.”

“Don’t call—” Eddie stops himself this time, licking at where his lips are getting dry, embarrassment and shame rolling through his stomach anew. He wants another hit. He wants another margarita. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. 

Why did he start this conversation? 

“I _would_ have moved in with you,” he says pathetically, quietly, and he’s not even sure Richie hears him. He looks rabid, hair a wild mess, eyes bouncing dangerously against the light, behind his glasses. 

“I spent months inside my head, telling myself it couldn’t possibly mean anything,” Richie almost whines, and Eddie’s heart rate kicks up painfully. He’s suddenly aware of every single pulse point in his body, thrumming with heat and panic, because what does that mean, what the _fuck_ could that possibly mean?? 

“What do you—” Eddie tries to gasp, but his throat flutters around the words and the cough returns. He’s hacking and heaving in less than a second, and Richie crouches down, pressing a hand smack dab in the center of his chest, and Eddie’s vision blurs around the edges for more reason than one. He looks up, he finally fucking looks up and it’s— 

Richie. All he can see is Richie. 

“Eddie? Y’okay?” 

All he wants is Richie. Richie’s wide blue eyes and Richie’s messy hair and Richie’s shaky words and panicked stare and Richie’s mouth that tastes like shitty beer and weed and what the _fuck_ —

He’s kissing Richie. 

And Richie’s kissing him back. 

Richie’s shifting onto his knees now, pressing up into Eddie’s mouth, his lips just as dry as Eddie’s but it feels so good, it feels better than anything Eddie’s ever felt in his life. Eddie holds onto it, reaches back and around Richie’s neck, Richie’s _neck_ , Richie’s hair, Richie’s skin, how Richie smells, how he tastes, and doesn’t want to let go.

He never wants to let go. 

But Richie pulls back. 

“Eds… Eddie,” he gasps, and Eddie sees spit gathering, shining in the light of the porch, and he reels Richie back in for more. 

It’s gentler this time, now that Eddie’s aware of what he’s doing, now that Eddie knows what Richie looks like while he’s kissing, how genuine and dark and fucking… _beautiful_ he looks while he’s kissing. The crease flinches harder between his eyebrows, and his mouth pouts into a delicious, asking circle, and his eyes flick up and down and back and forth, trying to measure where Eddie is turning so the press of his glasses doesn’t cut too deeply into Eddie’s cheek. 

The sound of their mouths rasping is more intoxicating than the alcohol, or the weed, or the fact that this is all so familiar Eddie practically feels thrown back in time. They barely kissed last time; just a few messy, drunken pecks before Eddie wanted to show him he was serious, that he wanted him, so badly he could barely breathe with it. 

He can’t really breathe now either, residual ash from the fire and the joint and the panic of having a conversation that he now realizes is half-finished, but he feels Richie’s breath, somehow both hot and cold puffed against his lips. 

He can feel Richie’s hands tracing the same line over his thighs as they did before, but this time, they don’t stop and tease. They keep moving up his chest, over his shoulders, inching past the collar of his jacket and his shirt until he’s petting at the skin under the nape of Eddie’s neck. Eddie shivers, from the cold, or from the touch, or from both, lost in it, the swirling, overwhelming fuzz from the weed and the rough scratch from where Richie’s stubble keeps pressing into his chin. 

“Rich,” Eddie says for no particular reason, except that he knows he wants more and isn’t quite sure how to get it. Richie’s crouched down and out of reach and Eddie’s hands want to touch skin, Richie’s skin, Richie’s bare _chest_ , maybe, because maybe that’s all he’s been thinking about since seeing it through the window yesterday. 

“Richie,” he says again, because nothing has changed. Then Richie pulls away, which is the opposite of what should be happening, and then he stands up, his knees creaking against the wood. Eddie winces at the sound, then at the look on Richie’s face. 

Even in the dark, Eddie can see how pale he’s gone. Richie croaks out an, “I shouldn’t… Jesus—” and rubs at his mouth, staring down at where it smudges wet onto his palm. 

Eddie’s still catching his breath. He’s always catching his fucking breath. 

“I shouldn’t be doing this, Ed— Eddie, I shouldn’t— we’re drunk. We’re _high_ , fuck, I can’t believe I did this again,” Richie swears, spinning in slow circles on the patio while Eddie watches him, dumb and lovestruck like he hasn’t been in _months_. Like he hasn’t… he hasn’t been allowed. 

He’s barely let himself look at a picture of Richie since it happened, and now Richie’s standing here, fire-whipped and freshly kissed and a little bit hard, probably, from the hunched way his body is bent, hands covering his crotch. Eddie wants to push him back into his chair and unzip his pants, so he stands up and crowds into Richie’s warm body.

“I don’t care, I don’t care,” Eddie says, fast and loose, grabbing at Richie’s wrists. “It’s— it doesn’t matter, I know what I want, I want this.”

“Eddie—”

“Do you really not want this?” 

Eddie squeezes Richie’s wrist between his fingers, a _here I am, please do this with me, I can see you want it, too_ , but Richie shakes his head.

“It’s not about—” He shakes free. Takes a step back. Eddie feels the night chill like he’s been dipped in an ice bath. 

But then Richie takes his old seat, gesturing for Eddie to do the same. 

“Can you just let me explain?” he says, his eyes pleading. Eddie briefly considers fleeing, the vulnerability suddenly and painfully nipping at his heart, but Richie smiles, small and sad, and Eddie can’t help but dazedly sit down and wait on him.

Richie exhales loudly a few times, shaking out his hands, clenching around his knuckles, and then says:

“Listen, I love you too. Alright?” 

Eddie could swear his ears start ringing, but that’s probably the pot. He blinks under Richie’s gaze, still nervous, still open and asking, and when silence stretches between them, Eddie falters over a response. 

“Yes? Am I— do you want me to— I mean, is that a question?”

“No, it’s not a question,” Richie squeaks, his shoulders tense. “I’m just telling you that I love you too, because there’s a lot to say and I thought maybe starting with that might… help.” Richie’s eyes fall away from him, searching. Eddie grimaces. 

The trees creak. They sound like Richie’s knees. 

“It… helps,” Eddie says. 

Though he’s not sure it does. 

Richie loves him. Richie loves… him. Eddie. And Eddie loves him back. 

So that’s… okay. Yeah. That definitely helps. His palms start to sweat as he dwells on it, his thoughts choppy and unpredictable.

Richie’s still nodding. “Good. Yeah. I thought—”

“But why all the…” Eddie flicks his hand in the air. “...bullshit?” 

“Fuck, dude, it’s not _bullshit_ , I was barely out.” Richie says breathlessly.

“You were out to me,” Eddie says quietly. Richie’s whole body jerks up, his spine straightening. 

“I had _just_ come out to you. And you were _just_ divorced. I thought it was… I thought you were doing the rebound thing, or maybe just going with the flow, or—”

“Yes, I’ve been known to _go with the flow_ ,” Eddie grumbles, and Richie is out of his chair again. His whole body is like one big livewire, tripping and shorting out with every word from Eddie’s mouth. His feet are a blur, taking him to the edge of the patio and back. 

“I didn’t even know _you_ weren’t straight! We barely talked about me being out, I didn’t even know you were fully, like, cool with it! And I didn’t have any fucking time to think! One minute you were married, and the next you were divorced, and then you were saying, _Hey, Rich, we should get some peanut M &M’s and watch a movie_—”

“It was peanut _butter_ ,” Eddie mumbles, but Richie ignores him. He’s a swine who can’t tell the difference, anyway. 

“—and then two hours later you were crawling into my lap.” Eddie blushes. Richie paces across the patio. “And then _out_ of my lap.”

“I thought we both felt it, Rich, otherwise I wouldn’t have—”

“I did feel it. I _did_ , I just—” A stuttered, aborted noise comes from Richie’s throat, his fingers clenching around where he’s trying to explain. But Eddie…

“You didn’t trust it,” Eddie says, and Richie sighs hard. Their eyes meet.

“I didn’t fucking trust it.” 

He sounds broken. Tired. Lifeless, like when he first drove up to what he thought was going to be a relaxing vacation and found a very stressed, very loud Eddie stomping his way. Eddie had spent months working toward a divorce, and his feelings, and then considering telling Richie how he felt. Even months in, it felt like throwing caution to the wind. But Richie had no idea; the truth of it all fell into his lap—quite literally—in one single night. 

Eddie used the signing of his divorce papers as the excuse he’d been waiting for, but avoiding all the same. It felt like the culmination of everything. Their childhood, the clown, all that fear and pain and lost time, and now, the end of his marriage. All he wanted, in that moment of finalty, was to start something new. 

And then Richie opened the door, and they spent all evening drinking and watching a movie, and Eddie practiced his peanut butter three-pointers with Richie’s mouth acting as the hoop, and things got complicated and… blurry. 

And now...

“And now I’m drunk again,” Eddie says. 

“And pretty high,” Richie adds. 

Eddie scoffs, leaning back in his chair. “Let’s not exaggerate here, but, like, yeah, okay.” 

“You said the trees were good,” Richie tells him, unnecessarily. 

“That’s a perfectly normal thing to say when we are _among the trees_ ,” Eddie yelps, pointing out at the forest. 

Richie flops back onto his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. 

“See, ‘among the trees,’ makes you sound pretty high, too.” 

“Okay, fuck,” Eddie huffs, almost a laugh, caught hard between something scary and something good, all mangled in his heart. “I told you I _loved_ you, I—”

“I didn’t think you meant—”

“You thought I’d just say that just to- to… get in your fucking _pants_?” 

“Yes!” Richie yells. It echoes out into the trees. “Yes, okay? It’s not like it would be the first time.” 

Eddie licks his lips, letting the words settle. “Oh.” 

“Yeah, _oh_.”

“So guys have… done that.” Eddie clears his throat. “In the past.” 

“Few times, yeah.” Richie sighs, his voice shaky. “I’m an easy target, I guess. With my… with what my comedy used to be, no one would fucking clock it, right? So these guys had a night off from their wives and we’d have some drinks, and they’d tell me what they thought I wanted to hear.” 

Eddie’s whole body goes cold. “Jesus, Rich.” 

“And I’m not gonna tell anyone, right? Cause I’d be sacrificing my own career. So I’m stuck in this fucking loop of never believing a goddamn thing anyone told me, but still wanting to hear it. Still _needing_ to hear it.” 

Richie looks over at him, sad puppy dog eyes, and Eddie is shocked into a memory of that night. Of Richie’s face as he pushed Eddie away with little explanation. Eddie wants to scour the ends of the earth to burn these nameless, faceless cowardly men to the ground. The men who made Richie think no one could ever really love him. The men who made him crawl away in fear when something that could have been real touched him. 

“I didn’t want that with you,” Richie says, and Eddie reaches a hand over to his knee. 

“It wouldn’t have—”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t fucking know that,” Richie snaps. Eddie almost pulls away, but Richie’s eyes go soft. “I thought you’d regret it. I wasn’t willing to give a repeat performance of my _Yeah, it’s cool, man, I totally get it; too many drinks, an eager mouth, I know how it goes_ shtick so I cut and run instead. Thought that might save me a little bit of dignity. Turns out it was a lose-lose, ‘cause then I couldn’t really face you, and it… snowballed.” 

Eddie licks his lips. “Snowballed. Into not talking to me for three months.”

Richie whips to look at him. “You didn’t talk to _me_ either.” 

“I was fucking embarrassed,” Eddie sighs, then swallows. “I was fucking _angry_.” 

“Figured you would be,” Richie says. He nudges their feet together. The soles of their shoes touch. Eddie’s hand rests lazily on Richie’s thigh. The wind whistles gently in the trees. 

“But I still… I still mean it.” 

Richie gapes over at him, the dull lamplight playing ring-around-the-iris. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Richie says, nodding. “Me too.” 

Eddie shuffles his feet, feeling more sober by the second.

“So…”

Richie quirks a brow. “So?” 

“... what about now?” 

“What about it?” Richie asks, inching his fingers closer to where Eddie’s hand lies. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“D’you want to, like, come inside? Or something?” Eddie gulps down some air, the feeling of being fifteen again rolling over him like a tide, asking Richie up to his room to look at comic books. “We can just… sleep. Take it slow.”

Richie’s mouth stretches into a smile. His hair a sweaty mess; he looks exhausted and shifty and relieved; the light is glaring uncomfortably off his glasses and into Eddie’s eyes. Eddie wants to stare at him forever. 

“If you can keep your hands off me.” 

* * *

  
  


Taking it slow doesn’t exactly pan out. Not once Richie starts asking him questions about… before.

“So you thought about it… a lot,” Richie says, flattening his tongue against the underside of his spoon. 

Eddie’s face heats. He’s torn between wanting to maintain Richie’s self-esteem and his own dignity. But—

“Yeah,” he sighs, because it’s the truth. “I thought about it… yeah. It was a lot.”

“About kissing me,” Richie clarifies.

“K-kissing, yes,” Eddie replies slowly.

Richie points his spoon. “And more. More than kissing. Dick-specific thinking.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Eddie groans. He wants to crawl out of his own skin, especially now that the weed has officially worn off. A pint of ice cream between the two of them will do that, and the constant stream of Richie in his kitchen, Richie leering at him, Richie licking ice cream off a spoon suggestively while his _shoulders_ do _that_ in his shirt is leaving him vulnerable and horny as fuck. All of it adds up to some weird truth serum. 

“You’re thinking about it now,” Richie says, hand pressed to his hip, and when Eddie’s eyes follow, he throws his head back in a laugh. 

Eddie whacks Richie’s spoon with his own. “Would you shut—”

“Is it because my arms are out?” Richie holds one up, pathetically flexing where there is little muscle.

“—the fuck _up_ , for once—”

“Was it my fire-building skills?” 

“—in your goddamn life?” 

“You’ll have to make me,” Richie says, low and easy, his arm still stupidly raised. 

Eddie stares. Fingers, hips, shoulders, jaw. Already plotting his route. 

“Thought I had to keep my hands to myself,” he grits out. 

Richie gapes, caught in the middle of his own act, so Eddie rushes him, because that seems to be how these things go. 

Apparently. For them. 

Richie just stands there, and that’s too much for Eddie to handle. His hair looks too soft and his body looks too climbable and Eddie knows way too much but also not enough about how poorly Richie has been treated and touched and— 

And they kiss. And kiss and kiss and _kiss_ and at some point Richie’s spoon clatters to the ground and Eddie barely even registers it. He’s too busy with his hands, wrapped around Richie’s dumb arms, or his dumb shoulders, and he doesn’t want to push too far and take off Richie’s shirt—he’s not about to ruin this by going too fast, even if he can feel the ever-hardening press of Richie against his stomach—until he’s unceremoniously lifted off the ground and plopped onto the counter. 

Then all bets are fucking _off._

There’s no time to worry, to wonder if this is too much tongue, or if he’s doing things right, not with them clambering into each other so hot and heavy that for a moment Eddie holds the frames of Richie’s glasses against his temples so they don’t fly off. 

Richie’s previous concern about speed seems to no longer apply, not once he’s got a mouthful of Eddie’s tongue and two handfuls of Eddie’s ass. Not once he’s scooting him to the edge of the counter to slot the bulges of their cocks together. Eddie, ever the competitor, wants to even it out, so his hands find the hem of Richie’s shirt again. 

“Can you… can we take off—”

“Yes, please. Whatever you were going to say. Yes,” Richie answers, and Eddie laughs, a bit hysterical, but he’s gone from zero to sixty and back down about five times tonight. He feels dizzy with the dissonance between the expectation and the reality. So he strips his shirt and tries to be a little more _go with the flow_.

Richie follows suit before crowding back in, pressing their chests together and sighing; reaching up to gingerly cup a hand around the back of Eddie’s neck, and it’s so genuine that Eddie almost comes. On the spot. 

“ _Shit_ ,” he swears, clenching his eyes shut, trying to catch his breath. It’s been way too long. And he’s been too pent up. Too many late nights spent angrily rubbing one out to the sliver of a memory; creeping with shame as soon as he was done. And Richie’s— 

Richie’s been put through the ringer. His eyes are glassy as he backs off, watching Eddie closely, presumably for any signs of regret. 

Eddie will _definitely_ regret a premature ejaculation over the hairy press of Richie’s chest.

And then Richie actually asks, “Is this too fast?” and Eddie shakes his head but also _groans_ when Richie moves forward, and they _grind_ , ever so slightly, and fuck—

“I’m gonna come in my fucking pants,” he moans, but keeps his hips bucking, because the feel of Richie is too intoxicating, so he buries his face in Richie’s shoulder and starts humping forward. 

“Eds, _fuck_.” Richie keens, but Eddie’s quickly dissolving in his hold and he can’t fucking believe it.

“I’m serious, Rich,” Eddie breathes, his hands scaling Richie’s chest to tweak at his nipples. “You’re not even gonna get, _fuck_ , get a hand on m-me.”

“I don’t even care, we’re— we’ve got time, we can fuck in the bed tomorrow,” Richie says, shuddering in Eddie’s arms, and then he leverages his thumbs into Eddie’s hips and _pulls_ so his cock is rutting right into the space under Eddie’s balls. Sweat is collecting at the small of his back, where Eddie’s hands are pressed, where they’re rubbing and pushing so Richie can get closer; where they’re pretending Richie’s fucking into him on the kitchen counter of the vacation rental Bev is paying him for him to stay in.

Eddie’s practically bouncing, balanced uncomfortably on his tailbone, watching Richie’s dark eyes as he moves, as he cracks, as his expression breaks open into something less hungry and more honest, and Eddie wants to see that look everyday for the rest of his life. 

“Eddie, fuck I’m gonna come,” Richie moans. Eddie nods, panting heavy and loud, his brain crackling with pleasure. 

“Me too, I’m _coming_. Oh _fuck_. Jesus,” Eddie huffs, clinging tight to Richie’s neck, his shoulder, his fingers numb and clenching, Richie’s breath hot and wet against his temple. And it fucking… blows him apart. It wracks his body with relief and pleasure and eventually heavy sobs as his body goes limp with wracking tears. Richie is holding him tight against the counter, trying to calm him to no avail because Eddie is feeling everything crash down on him.

The time apart, saving each other’s lives, missing their chances once everything was laid plainly in front of them. It took them so long to get here, but now it’s all come together so fast. It almost feels like one big cosmic joke, in the end. 

Eddie’s head is spinning, so he cries it out; digs bruising fingers into Richie’s hips and shakes and shakes and shakes.

“S’okay, Eds. It’s alright, sweetheart,” Richie mutters in his ear, on a loop, until Eddie’s done hiccuping tears and actually starts to listen.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Eddie wakes the next morning to swollen eyes and an empty bed.

He jolts up in the dark, hands searching every corner of the bed, his brain not letting it settle. He walks all the way around the cabin twice, out onto the porch, even up the awful, steep staircase: all to no avail. 

Richie is gone. 

It happened. Again. 

Eddie wanders another useless lap in a fog and mentally recounts the night before: the fire, the conversation, the kissing, more conversation, more kissing. Coming in their pants on the counter. Cleaning up, brushing their teeth, laughing their way into bed, face-planting and passing out. The last thing he remembers is Richie slinging an arm around him.

The last thing he remembers thinking is _Wow. This could actually be it._

But he’s a fucking idiot. Or maybe Richie is. He can’t really make sense of it right now; in the light of another cold morning, with the imprint of Richie’s thumbs still burning on the skin of his hips, his back, his jaw. 

Eventually he makes a pot of coffee. He takes one sip and lets the rest cool too long while he stares into the middle distance of the living room. He tries to think of what the fuck he’s supposed to do now. When one thought keeps poking at him, he finds his phone. 

Bill picks up after half a ring, which somehow makes Eddie’s heart ache worse.

“Ed-Eddie?” 

“Yeah, hey, Bill.” 

“Hey, how are things?” Bill chuckles awkwardly. Eddie bites his tongue.

“Things are… well. Things aren’t great, actually, which is kind of what I’m calling, but um.” Eddie swallows, his toes vibrating against the floor. This is harder than he thought it would be. 

“When I hadn’t heard from you, I thought m-maybe you were mad or something.” 

“No, it’s not that I’m _mad_ , really, I just—”

“Listen, Eddie,” Bill starts, then stumbles over a pause. 

Eddie holds his breath, because here it comes, Bill’s about tell him how sad he was not to hear from him, or how disappointed he is, or maybe just _sound_ disappointed and that would somehow be even worse. And why the fuck does Eddie still have this frighteningly small complex about Bill being anything but proud of him?

But then Bill says, “Mike told me about the, uh, about the b-blowjob thing. And I don’t know what you heard about him and I, but we- we’re like, _together_ now.”

And Eddie almost falls off his chair. How many conversations about his sexual past with his friends is he going to have to live through?

“O-oh, uh. I did, uh,” Eddie manages before Bill takes over.

“But I don’t want you to think I’m upset or, or _jealous_ , Eds!” Bill says forcefully. Eddie jerks back in surprise. He’s going to get whiplash at this rate. 

“‘Cause I understand things happen, Eddie, and I just went through a divorce and I know how— I know how it feels to be with someone who _gets_ this stuff, you know? I’m just glad you and Mike had- had each other. There. For, uh.” He clears his throat. “For that. And if that’s the reason you weren’t calling, I’m… well, it’s totally fine.” 

Eddie shakes his head, then nods, his throat tripping over words his brain can’t find. 

“Uh, Bill. I—”

“And I know you talked to Beverly, and that Richie is there,” Bill squeaks, like air being let out of a tire. 

Eddie’s blood goes hot and staticky. “You _what_?” 

“I sent him there, Eddie, but it w-w-was _not_ on purpose,” Bill insists, his stutter kicking up in his panic. “I mean, I sent him there on purpose but I didn’t mean it to coincide with your vacation. I forgot the owner has two places, and I must have given Richie the other one.”

“Bill—”

“It’s just that Audra and I stayed a few years back with some friends and I recommended it to Beverly but I didn’t think she’d—”

“Bill. Please,” Eddie says, rounding back to disbelief. “Just… you should just stop.” 

“Right,” Bill sighs. “Right, I’m sorry.”

Eddie massages at his temple and tries to pull his focus back. 

_Richie_.

“Have you heard from him?” 

Bill pauses. “Mike? Yeah we live—”

“No, _Bill_ , have you heard from Richie?” 

“Oh, right. Uh. Yeah, I heard from him this morning right before he left.” 

Eddie’s throat tightens. “Left? Left for where?” 

“H-home? He was only there for a few nights, so.” Bill clears his throat. “Did you guys see each other?” 

“Um, yeah,” Eddie says, feeling that urge to cry crowding back around him. “Yeah, we did.” 

Bill hums inquisitively. “You know he’s kinda… going through it, then.” 

“We’re all going through it, Bill,” Eddie snaps, then immediately feels guilty. Kind of. 

“Right, yeah, of course, I know you two, uh. Something. Anyway, did he tell you he- he came out?” 

Eddie blinks. “Came out? To you guys? I kinda figured.” 

“No, like, publicly,” Bill says, wistful and proud. “He did it on Twitter, even though I called in a few favors to get him an interview with The Times, but, you know Richie, he’ll do what he—”

“He came out _publicly_?” Eddie yelps, standing up to pace the room. “Wait, wait, wait. Bill. _When_?” 

“This past weekend. That’s why he wanted to get away, actually,” Bill says, and Eddie’s vision starts to blur around the margins. He catches himself on the arm of his chair, gripping hard to keep from passing out.

Richie came out here to get away from the real world. From everything going on in his life. After being really fucking _brave_. And Eddie bullied him into talking. And kissing. And—

Jesus _fuck_ , Eddie’s a horrible friend. 

“Bill, I- uh. I think I have to go,” Eddie says, and mumbles his goodbyes and promises to call back at a better time before collapsing on the couch. 

He thinks about calling Beverly, but can’t bring himself to actually do it.

* * *

  
  


Somehow he ends up at the beach. 

A body of water was on the must-have list Eddie gave Bev when she went “searching” for rentals—there will be time to angrily dwell on that thought later— and this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s up a few precarious hills and Eddie has to back out of two dead ends on the way, but when he pulls up to see a barely occupied little stretch of sand, the stress of the drive is forgotten. 

Unfortunately, in his haste to get out of the cabin, he’s also forgotten anything useful, like a blanket or towel or chair to sit on, so he gives up and sits down where the concrete of the parking lot meets the sand. 

The waves are impressive today, crashing and cresting picture-perfectly, covering any noise from where two blonde children are running and playing a ways down on the shore. Eddie just stares, mesmerized by the constance of them. The endless motion of the water lulls him as much as it unsettles him. 

Eddie’s had a weird relationship with water over the course of his life. 

As a kid, it felt like an earned freedom. Full of bacteria and sludge and animals that nipped at his ankles and swam away before he could blame them. It was a place he could be somehow dirty and clean, covered in dirt one moment and washed away the next; emerging happy and exhausted from a day with his friends. It was the rippling water under the splash of their legs and Richie’s shaggy wet hair and Mike’s shiny beading skin. It was hands climbing over shoulders and feet clashing into faces and yelling and laughing and the memories of the good and the bad all put together. 

In Derry—in Derry as an _adult_ —water felt like an omen. Panicked splashing and murky depths and whispered words and blood and pain and relief. Complicated. Still messy, but with more weight. Just like everything else. Confusing and difficult and stupid and hard, slogging through each day while he trying to stay afloat, trying to stay free of whatever’s under the surface.

But he’s worked so hard to take so much back since Derry. He’s worked hard to know himself, to _like_ himself, to turn his back on bad associations and create something new. 

Water therapy for his shoulder, long baths for his anxiety, walks along the least fish-rank, least crowded pier in New York for some time to think. Cooking spicy foods and eating things chock full of sodium and fat and sugar. Sleeping on the floor with a friend for old time’s sake. Reading for hours at a time without worrying it’s a waste. Saying things out loud. He’s probably worst at the last one, but he’s… he’s trying. 

He’s trying so _fucking_ hard. 

And he knows Richie is, too. They’re both still wading in the quarry water back at Derry, trying and failing to free themselves of their former lives, their former fears, the things that held them back. Sometimes Eddie wonders if it’s just part of him. If it’s part of all of them, like they’re all a part of each other. Maybe that’s why they need each other; maybe without each other they wouldn’t be capable of moving on. Of starting again. 

Eddie loses track of time as he watches the waves. When he finally checks his phone again it’s almost dinner, his skin sun-kissed and tight, his body sluggish and heavy. He hadn’t managed to stomach breakfast or lunch, so he stands up to head back for whatever he can pull together for dinner.

One more night at this cabin. One more night in the small bed in the dark room by himself. 

From there… he has no fucking idea. But he’s working on it. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


By the time he’s turning onto the small road that holds his cabin, the sun is hanging low in the sky. It’s a beautiful view, orange and deep purple smeared over the horizon wherever the trees can’t cover it. 

In his driveway, Richie’s ugly red Camry sits. 

On the stoop by Eddie’s front door, Richie’s doing the same. 

Eddie parks on the gravel, his body moving on autopilot until Richie sees him. His eyes jump, that same level of surprise as the first day. But then they soften.

Eddie’s heart does the same. 

“Richie?” Eddie’s too desperate to get to him, catching and almost strangling himself on his own seatbelt before Richie stands to close the gap himself. 

“I’m such a fucking idiot,” Richie’s saying, but he’s smiling, and Eddie’s laughing, tripping over the gravel until they’re face to face. “I’m so fucking sorry I left, I shouldn’t have left, that was really—”

“Horrible. Painful. Like, ridiculously—”

“Bad. I know.” Richie scrubs a hand over his face, his body imitating his deflated duffel at the bottom of Eddie’s stoop, exhausted and over-burdened. 

“But you came back,” Eddie says, swaying closer, wanting to reach out and touch. He’s definitely not going to push his fucking luck again. But Richie presses into him, a hesitant hand falling to his hip, and Eddie lets it flow through him until he can nudge their noses together. 

Richie manages a strangled, “I came back,” before Eddie’s kissing him, their bodies pressed flush at the chest. His arms wrap around Richie’s waist. Richie’s hands move up to cup Eddie’s face, and when he finally pulls back, he looks straight in his eyes. 

“I freaked out again,” he says, very seriously. Eddie laughs, pressing his own hands over Richie’s.

“I kinda figured.” 

Richie smiles, but it fades quickly. “I came out. On- on Twitter.”

“I know, I talked to Bill.” Eddie nods. Richie’s eyebrows do a confused little dance before he sighs. 

“I woke up in your bed and I checked my phone, and it was, like. A mistake. It was a mistake,” Richie says, shaking Eddie lightly in his grip. Eddie presses up on his feet to peck at Richie’s lips once more. 

“I’m guessing it was—”

“Bad,” Richie groans, burying his face in Eddie’s shoulder. “It was bad, Eds. Cross between cancellation and complete disregard.”

“You’ll have to deal with that, I guess.” 

Richie’s head pops up, his eyes wide. His jaw flinches, so Eddie kisses there. He’s _always_ wanted to kiss there. 

“You are such an asshole,” he snorts. “I love you so fucking much.” 

Richie leans down to press back into Eddie’s mouth, sweeping an arm down the length of Eddie’s back to make him shiver. Eddie breathes into him and holds on tight. 

Eddie wants nothing but to pull Richie inside, wrap him up in a blanket, throw his phone into a sewer and make out until… well, check out. But his empty stomach has other plans. Richie pulls back when it rumbles enthusiastically between them, his face cast in shadow from the evening light. 

“You wanna grab some dinner?” Richie asks, gently kissing Eddie’s cheekbones, one by one. “I’ve had a hankering for Thai ever since I got here, but last time I tried an angry little man threw a temper tantrum and I got distracted.” 

Eddie flicks him _hard_ on the nose, but eventually agrees. In retaliation, Richie kisses him against the side of the house for ten more minutes. Once they’re finally piling into Eddie’s car for dinner, they’re both a little wobbly-legged. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Dinner is catching up and longing smiles across the table. It’s all the words they couldn’t tell each other before, all the things they managed to do without each other and all the things they didn’t. Eddie mostly talks about therapy and Bev. Richie mostly talks about Chicago and Bill and Mike. Eddie wants to hear it now; the prospect of his friends being in love doesn’t feel as overwhelming. Not when he keeps catching Richie staring at him every time he looks away. 

It’s more spicy food than Eddie can handle, but Richie’s more than willing to make up the difference. It’s kicking feet under the table and poking at each other’s hands on the top, but keeping to themselves just in case someone in the restaurant recognizes Richie. It’s taking their time but paying attention. 

It’s everything Eddie’s wanted for the past few months, handed back to him in droves, plus a lot more for all his trouble. 

Once they’re back at the cabin, Eddie gives Richie the tour a few days late. Richie is absolutely flabbergasted Eddie’s been using the downstairs bedroom, as cave-like and cramped as it is, so he lugs a night’s worth of supplies and Eddie’s travel outfit for tomorrow up the stairs and then turns to face Eddie once he’s done. 

“I’m carrying you, dude,” Richie says, then tries, in one fell swoop, to hoist Eddie up over his shoulder.

Luckily, not only is Eddie loud, but he’s deceivingly heavy when he wants to be. He goes limp as soon as Richie’s bent over and bellows his heart out for good measure. Richie only gets about halfway back up—his arms wrapped hard around Eddie’s thighs—before he’s sputtering his defeat and cackling just-as-loudly in Eddie’s ear. They tumble together in an ungainly heap on the ground until Richie starts to fucking _tickle_ , and then Eddie’s chased up the ridiculous stairs and thrown onto the bed like they’re two frat guys playing grab ass. 

Richie rolls him into the center of the bed and kisses him until they’re both hard, but they both agree—mouths still glued together, hips rocking gently like they can’t help it—to spend a night without sex. 

Eddie falls asleep staring at the moon, his hand running counter-clockwise against Richie’s scalp, still mumbling stories of living alone in New York into his pillow. 

* * *

  
  
On his last day of vacation, Eddie wakes bathed in sunlight for the very first time. 

Richie is spooned up against his chest, his legs tangled tight in the comforter. It’s nowhere near Eddie’s body anymore, but Richie is warm enough for the both of them. Eddie nuzzles into the side of Richie’s head until he starts moving, wiggling his toes off the edge of the bed. 

“Told you the sun’d be beautiful up here,” Richie mumbles, barely awake, like an asshole.

“Your breath is atrocious, I have no idea what you’re saying,” Eddie grunts, wrapping his legs around Richie’s whole middle. He’s so solid. Who the fuck needs a body pillow when you have a soft, giant boyfriend? 

Eddie’s stomach rolls. _Boyfriend._

Is that what they are? How can they _not_ be? After a night of recounting personal anecdotes, poking at each other as they brushed their teeth side by side, and then sleeping—like _actually_ sleeping together—what the fuck _else_ would it mean? 

There’s no one else’s morning breath Eddie would want to battle. He knows that for sure, and the thought alone floors him. Despite all the trouble, he’s probably known it for the better part of a year. If not his whole life.

He tucks the thought away for later. There are already enough logistics to figure out. They live halfway across the country from each other. Surely labels are low on the priority list. All he cares about right now is how Richie’s body is wriggling. Pressing his weight, slow and deliberate, against Eddie’s front. When Eddie reaches down to paw over Richie’s hip, his fingers accidentally drag across his new priority number one.

Richie huffs a laugh. “Found it in one.”

Eddie takes the acknowledgment as light permission, and presses his whole hand to the outline of Richie’s cock. _Fuck_. 

“Not super hard to find.”

He’s seen it before, had it fucking against him, almost had it in his mouth—Jesus ever-loving _Christ_ he wants it in his mouth—but it’s teasing neverthless. The reach is awkward, but Eddie immediately wants more. He wants so much. The smell and feel of Richie’s bare skin, of him warm and squirming and open and vulnerable in Eddie’s arms, in the morning sun, in the small, bright vacation home Eddie’s spent all his time alone in is—

Eddie wants so much.

Biding his time, Eddie trails a hand across the hairy stretch of Richie’s stomach, over his hip bones and back. Touching Richie is a novelty as much as it’s aching familiar. He leans into the comfort, into the heat unfurling in his stomach at the line of Richie’s cock filling out in his boxers. His own hips roll against the flattened curve of Richie’s spine to follow suit. Not that he has far to go. 

They didn’t sleep naked last night, but this skimpy layer of fabric—coupled with the lack of shirts on either of them—isn’t much better. 

“Something’s gonna be super hard if you keep that up,” Richie sniggers. There’s the cadence of a joke, but it’s quickly overshadowed by a breathless moan. Eddie’s hand is toying with him now, stroking over the length, cupping at the head and then circling back up toward his nipples. 

“I can stop,” Eddie says, going another round across the map of Richie’s body, and he would, he really fucking would if Richie didn’t—

“Please don’t.”

—oh thank _fuck_. 

“You sure?” he confirms, but Richie’s already nodding against him, black hair ruffling at his mouth. Eddie blows it out of the way and pushes his boxers down to his thighs while Richie does the same. 

Eddie groans as his cock hits the air, weeping and red, desperate for some release of the pressure. He pulls Richie back by his hips, slotting them together, and Richie goes easy, but a little too easy, because they meet with a wet, obscene slapping of skin, Eddie’s cock rubbing in one swift movement over the small of Richie’s back. It’s close enough to his ass that Eddie stutters… then pushes over the same spot again. 

“Oh fuck, fuck,” Richie hisses, rocking his hips back, shuffling his legs to get Eddie closer, and Eddie’s absurdly reminded of last night. It almost shakes him—he wonders if it’s possible they’re going to keep making the same stupid mistake again and again— but Richie tips his head back, over his shoulder, and whispers, “Fuckin’ _kiss_ me,” and Eddie’s brain goes a little mushy. 

Richie keeps grinding back, his hips a fucking menace to Eddie’s concentration or sanity, and then they’re just humping onto each other on the bed. The privacy might not be what Eddie was hoping for, but it’s enough to know no one can hear the rickety squeaking of the metal frame as they speed up, and slow down, and speed back up; their panting turns to laughing and then back to panting, and Eddie’s so fucking in love he can hardly see straight. 

An awkward shimmy brings him further down the bed while he pumps a hand around himself and plots his course. He can’t possibly fuck Richie right now; they’re both too amped up to make it through prep. Eddie’s eyes trail down the sticky, shiny pre-come on Richie’s back, and down to his ass, where he wants nothing more than to pry it open, lick into Richie until he’s seeing stars, maybe rub off against him after he’s done, just hold his cheeks open and—

Fuck. 

Eddie wants so fucking _much_. 

Narrowing it down, he lifts off the bed in a hurry to grab the bottle of lotion in his bag, then fits himself against Richie’s back, slicking himself up.

Richie’s still flopped about, whining his impatience into his pillow, so Eddie pinches hard at his ass cheek to get his attention. 

“Hold your leg up, Rich.”

Richie looks at him, blearily. “Wha— I don’t know if I’m—”

“Your thighs, you idiot,” Eddie says, manhandling Richie until they’re spooned again, then shifting backward until he can slip easily between Richie’s legs. 

“Shit.” Richie takes hold of himself while Eddie’s adjusting, and the sight is so scorching, combined with the sudden _squeeze_ of Richie’s thighs as he brings them back together— 

Eddie fucking loses it. He pushes at Richie’s shoulder until he’s pressed into the bed and goes to town, sliding his cock between Riche’s legs, slapping their skin together. Richie bellows a guttural moan, fucking his hips down into the mattress in turn, and Eddie wants to be there, too. He wants to fuck and be fucked; he wants to kiss and be kissed; he wants to have Richie all over him while he’s also painting Richie with come, wild and in love and bursting with sweat and saliva and way too much for him to handle all at once. 

He tells Richie some of that, whatever his brain can grasp, whatever he can make pour from his mouth.

“I wanna come all over you. You’re so fucking _hot_ , I can’t believe I get to touch you, to do this to you.” Harsh and wet in Richie’s ear, against the dewy skin of Richie’s back. “You’re fucking mine, Richie, you’re mine.” 

“I’m yours. Oh my god,” Richie pants, trying to keep up, but trapped by Eddie’s punishing rhythm. “Eddie, Eds, I’m yours, please.”

“I’ll give it to you, I’ll give you everything you want.”

“The tip, put the tip in,” Richie squeaks, and Eddie almost has a fucking coronary. 

“Jesus _fuck_ Richie, I can’t—”

Richie’s head tips to the side, his eyes dark. “Just for a second, just fucking— I just wanna feel you.”

“Okay, alright. Fuck, alright,” Eddie swears, and briefly wonders if he’s dreaming. The universe has given him far too many nightmares for one lifetime. Even if this is a dream, he thinks he’d take the trade-off. 

Eddie grips hard around the base of his cock, using one hand to spread Richie open and drag the tip down around his hole. It’s already wet, hair spread all around where Eddie pushes inside, _just for a second_ , until it tries to stretch around him. It must burn but Richie just whimpers, still pinned to the bed under Eddie’s weight, balled up sheet clenched in his hand. It’s needy and small, and Eddie wants to take a bite of it, wants to hold it between his fingers and squeeze until there’s nothing left. 

He wants everything. 

Eddie sucks in a shaky breath. He rubs his cock over Richie’s opening, just teasing; once, then twice, and by the third time Richie’s gone silent. Eddie presses a palm to his shoulder, feeling the tension.

“That what you wanted?” he asks, and Richie flicks his head lazily with a nod. 

“Yes, _yeah_ —”

“I’m close, I have to—”

“Anything, do it,” Richie breathes, and it breaks Eddie’s resolve. 

He feels himself start to pitch roughly off the cliff of his own control once he fucks back into Richie’s thighs, his balls and stomach and muscles clenching up and releasing with every thrust against Richie’s body, but he still wants Richie to know it. Eddie needs Richie to _know_ it.

“Gonna come all over you, Rich.”

“Do it,” Richie gasps, tongue lolling onto the sheets. “Do it, please, I want you to.”

“Fuck, Richie. You’re so— you’re so good, you mean—” 

Eddie’s whole body gives, coughing up a sob, coursing through his stomach and his cock until he’s painting the insides of Richie’s thighs with his release. Richie forces out a groan and a laugh simultaneously, holding an arm back to grab at Eddie’s ass, to urge him on as he’s fucking into that empty space again and again. 

“Eddie,” Richie breathes, so Eddie slows down and reaches; he rubs the come all over Riche’s stomach, scratching it into his hair, just to feel Richie hiss from the sensitivity. Then he pulls out from under his body, easing Richie over until his back hits the mattress so Eddie can crawl between his legs. 

“You’re covered, Rich,” Eddie says when he sees the white streaks all over Richie’s belly, even dripping down his shaft and onto his balls. He looks messy, his glasses finally pushed off his face and propped onto the pillow above him. “I’ve been dreaming about this for _months_ ,” Eddie adds, for good measure, before taking the head of Richie’s cock into his mouth. 

Richie garbles something nonsensical as Eddie descends on him, hungry and finally making up for lost time. His hand finds the back of Eddie’s head, fingers curling, but mostly he just holds. Eddie hardly needs the encouragement, popping up and down, high and tight, savoring the bitter, slimy taste of him. 

Richie keens, clearly out of control, but Eddie takes it in stride. He may have done this before—exactly once, thank you, Mike Hanlon—but he’s not about to get ambitious on his second walk around the park. Richie’s too big and Eddie’s too enthusiastic. Richie’s flailing and flapping, groaning and whining, so Eddie decides to slow it down. 

He pulls off with a gasp, then presses his lips filthily back over the slit. 

“You taste so good,” he says, his face burning with shame, but Richie’s eyes go glassy. 

“Eddie,” he mutters like a prayer, his hand petting at Eddie’s head. 

Eddie tongues under the head. “I don’t ever want to stop.” 

“You better fucking not.” 

Hips thrust up into Eddie’s face, but he leans to avoid them. He slobbers over the side of Richie’s dick instead, purpling at the head for him. Licks his tongue down to the crease at Richie’s crotch, burying his nose in the ghosting of hair there, where he’s sticky and damp. Eddie wishes he could jerk off, hovering over Richie like this. Get him even wetter, then prop his legs up and slide inside. 

Maybe next time.

“I can draw it out, though.” Eddie breathes in deep and lets Richie squirm. 

“Please.” Richie’s quiet and desperate, pouring sweat into the sheets. Eddie shoves a hand under his ass to feel the give, then pushes, spreads, grips under his balls to reveal his hole. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says under his breath. “I want you so bad.” He rewards Richie with a shallow bob. “I can’t wait to fuck you.” 

“Eddie—”

“You deserve to feel so fucking good, Rich,” Eddie says, unable to stop. His head is foggy with the smell and taste of him, everything laid out for him, everything within reach, and he’s mad with it. He takes more and more of Richie’s cock in his mouth, gets it closer and closer to nudging at the back of his throat until he has to pop off to breathe. In the pauses he jerks Richie with his hand, gathering up the spit for the slide, panting encouragements and praises once his throat stops clenching. 

Richie’s head is thrashing as he keeps brokenly peering down, watching Eddie before throwing an arm over his eyes, like he can’t decide what’s too much and what’s not. A shredded sense of pride crawls all over Eddie’s body. He’s always wanted to make someone feel like this. He’s always wanted to make Richie feel like this. 

Eddie’s memory flashes with a lifetime of touches, of driving each other crazy, of batting and swatting and pinching and headlocks until neither of them could breathe. Words and laughter and peeling anger and burning want that he didn’t recognize until Richie stood in front of him, all big and tall and lanky and blinked like maybe he was seeing it, too. Now they’re tangled together, skin stuck and shifting, and Eddie sees it clearly for what it is. 

It’s everything. 

A quick, shuddering pant starts in Richie’s chest, and Eddie pulls off with an obscene slurp to kiss at his thigh, his hip, and back where his cock is feverish and leaking.

“Fuck, Richie.” Eddie stares at Richie’s red face and wants. He _wants_. “Come in my mouth.”

“Eds—”

“Do it, c’mon,” Eddie replies, engulfing him again, and that’s all the permission Richie needs. He folds nearly in half as his cock twitches against the tip of Eddie’s tongue, and Eddie relaxes and swallows and relaxes again to keep swallowing. It’s heady and amazing, to be able to do this, to watch Richie come apart and trust him. 

The soft, velvety give of him slips wetly from Eddie’s lips as Richie comes down with a groan, but Eddie gives it one last lick as they’re pulling apart. He crawls up the bed to gather Richie in his arms so they can shudder and breathe together. 

They mouth at each other’s skin and jaws and scratch red spots onto each other with morning stubble. Once Richie’s recovered he topples them over, presses his whole weight onto Eddie, presses their bellies together until they’re practically stuck and Eddie pretends to complain about wanting out. 

“We have to shower and check out,” he says, while Richie’s teeth-deep in attempting a hickey on his neck. 

“Mmm,” Richie grunts, pulls off. “Could do this all day.” 

Eddie snorts. “I wish.” 

Richie gives up, leaving a half-finished ring of dark pink at the base of his throat. His fingers find Eddie’s nipple, then his tongue follows. 

“I have nowhere to be,” he says, kitten-licking Eddie like a child eating a popsicle. “Actually, quite the opposite. I have places I definitely do _not_ want to fucking be. I’d hole up for another three years if I could.”

“Yeah,” Eddie hums, thinking on it. Richie’s forehead flinches. 

“You’re not gonna argue with me about starting my life again? Making the best of it? _Get over yourself, asshole, and stop throwing yourself pathetic little pity parties_!”

“I was thinking more like, _Let’s go splitskies over another couple nights_ ,” Eddie says, in his best Richie-doing-Eddie impression. Richie’s isn’t actually that bad, but he doesn’t need to know that. No need to encourage it. “Asshole.” 

Richie kisses the grin off his face. “Fuck splitting, I’d cover it.”

“Nah, I changed my mind,” Eddie tells him, rolling them both to the edge so he can work on getting coffee started. “Bev’s got it covered.”   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to a very special QueeronTilMorning though I took some extremely personal liberties and I hope you at least kinda like what it morphed into. :) 
> 
> Thank you to the dopest [Alec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermccoy/pseuds/queermccoy) for the beta and the GC for listening to my rather excessive whining on this one, it was bad this time, sorry y'all. 
> 
> Was this set in the midwest? Yeah! Why did they vacation there? Uhhh?? Because I did and I said so. Sometimes you write almost 20k about a vacation you wish you were still on because life is hard. 
> 
> Please leave me a comment if you're able, and as always, find me on Tumblr at [tinyangryeddie](https://tinyangryeddie.tumblr.com/) or Twitter, where I'm [camerasparring](https://twitter.com/camerasparring)!


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